Metrozoo Provides Family Fun With Dr. Wilde's Screamatorium

Finding a place to take the peewees for a wholesome Halloween scare can be a daunting chore in this town. But the folks over at Miami's Metrozoo neatly fit the bill with Dr. Wilde's Screamatorium, the zoo's first full-scale family friendly fright emporium, featuring 7,000 square feet of graveyards and ghouls.

This haunted house was created by a special event design outfit called Flore de Lisa which has crafted props and effects for Universal Studios in the past.

We recently rounded up a posse of kindergarten and first graders to check out the heart-shuddering surprises and devilish diversions waiting inside.

The grim reaper greeted us at the door with a denuded femur in hand. Before entering, the tykes were each given a glow stick to keep the monsters and zombies at bay.

Silas Llanes, an adventuresome seven-year-old Carver Elementary School student waved his glowing wand at a killer clown that appeared from behind an eerily lit fish tank to terrorize the tykes. Llanes zapped the clown with his best Harry Potter banishing curse, prompting 23-year-old Kenneth Rossi to lift his mask and calm the lad down.

"Those babies are scary," sniffed five-year-old Bella Rodriguez while

cringing in front of a diabolical baby nursery with animated deformed

fetuses inside. When actress Lorraine Balbuena approached her holding a

hideous puppet that looked like the infernal infant from 1974s cult-classic It's Alive!, the whimpering waif disappeared into her mother's arms.

Balbuena quickly soothed the little girl's fears. "Hey, this witch is

chewing mint gum. Can I have some?" Rodriguez, a kindergartner at

Oliver Hoover Elementary chirped.

The Screamatorium also features a section spooling classic horror films

like Dracula, The Wolfman and Frankenstein. Another area includes a

butcher dicing body parts and a cemetery where a corpse flies out of a